Roman Entertainment: The Emergence of Permanent Entertainment Buildings and its use as Propaganda.

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the development of entertainment buildings in Ancient Rome, especially in the transitional period from the Late Republic to the Empire. The key question was how and when permanent Entertainment venues emerged, and how they were used as propaganda. Answers to this questions are based on the investigation of literary (primary and secondary), epigraphic and archaeological sources. It turned out that the organisation of entertainment in Rome always contained propagandistic messages. In the Roman Republic, the aristocracy used the organisation of entertainment, as well as providing housing for the spectacles, as political self-advertisement tool to acquire status, influence and prestige. There is evidence for at least three attempts of Roman magistrates that wanted to build permanent theatres in Rome during the second century BC. However, the Senate was able to block these attempts. While the Roman empire grew, and several cities including colonies built permanent theatres, Rome had none until the late first century. When the political and social conditions in Rome changed in the Late Republic, the aspects of propaganda within entertainment changed too. Permanent entertainment venues in Rome were the logical result of a gradual evolution of using entertainment as propaganda. Merely in the Late Republic this gradual evolution was accelerated. Strong magnates as Pompey Magnus and Julius Caesar were able to went a step further in the entertainment propaganda and the amount of permanent entertainment in Rome grew intense. Eventually Augustus and the emperors after him used permanent entertainment buildings as mass-communication tools to convey political, cultural and ideological messages and legitimize their power.